Thursday, May 31, 2018

I feel like I've sort of been neglecting the blog lately. I haven't actually been neglecting it, so much as I've had so many other things going on that I've decided to cut back a bit. At the beginning of May, I had family visiting - and when I say family, I mean a LOT of family! It was super busy, and during that time we also had our final co-op class and the end-of-year party for co-op. And then there was just a whole lot of end-of-the-school-year craziness. And that actually brings me to last week. Last week I was really sick at the beginning of the week and could barely keep up with my life. But I had to keep up, because Friday evening was our homeschool group's graduation ceremony.

But I don't have a graduating student this year, so how does that affect me? Well, I've been on our group's grad committee for a number of years, so I'm hands-on involved in every grad ceremony from planning ahead to the big event itself. I attend the planning meetings as the grad families put together the different elements of the ceremony, and the biggest role I play is in planning the music. We've tried to have two or three worship songs included in the ceremony, led by the graduating class. It's an interesting challenge to come up with those songs that the grads like and know fairly well, are suitable to the occasion, and are also well-known enough and appropriate for "congregational singing". Especially when the families in our homeschool group come from quite a variety of church backgrounds - from churches that do all hymns all the time, to churches that do only contemporary music. With the music chosen, we also have to decide who will play instruments and sing, and if any extra rehearsal time is needed, we coordinate that as well.

Then on grad night, I also get another job that is a lot of fun - I get to make sure the grads are properly put together in their caps and gowns and herd them along through the photo session, and then get them back into the building and ready to process into the ceremony on time. I have a couple of little things I do during the ceremony as well. This year the herding part of the job was easy with just four grads. So I more or less accompanied them and the photography team all over the church grounds for the pictures, but I was prepared to do last minute cap and tassel repairs and that sort of thing. (Thankfully, not required this year! Last year we had to repair two or three caps to make sure the tassel stayed put through the ceremony!) While trailing along after the group, I try to grab some quick pictures. Sometimes my pictures turn out really well, but my goal is really just to get a little preview that I can share with the moms and maybe a couple of fun candids of the process too. Here are a few of the photos from our Class of 2018 photo shoot. I can hardly wait to see the finished professional photos!

So that was Friday. On Saturday Kennady and I spent the entire afternoon and evening attending grad parties for two of those young people. Sunday was fairly typical, but without a whole lot of downtime. On Monday morning, we were up in time for the Memorial Day parade in town.

The hubster came along with me and Kennady and Landon this year. We dropped Landon off with his Civil Air Patrol squadron at the staging area for the parade, and we carried on to the coffee roastery on Main Street where I work. We'd decided to stay open during the parade, serving coffee and specialty drinks. We watched the parade from in front of the store last year and it was a good spot, so I figured we could watch and I could be available to work at the same time, which was a pretty good deal. A few friends came down to watch the parade with us as well.

Thank you,veterans!

Thank you to those currently serving!

Captain Landon has his marching face on.

Several Civil War battles were fought not far from where we live (Gettysburg, Antietam, and Monocacy are all within about half an hour's drive), and there are many Civil War site markers right in our county and in town. We're also near Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Re-enactment groups are regular features in our parades, so we can honor the memory of fallen soldiers all the way back through the War Between the States, the War of 1812, and the Revolutionary Wars.

How's that for a weekend that started with marking graduation and looking to the future, and ended with a parade that remembered the heroes of the past?